The Older Man (13 page)

“Oh, don’t be silly!” she said crossly, just as a pot on the stove boiled over with a loud hiss, hot water cascading down its sides. Rennie said something totally unladylike and banged the casserole down on the bench, then snatched the pot off the ring.

“Need some help?” Grant asked.

“No!” she said fiercely, adding a belated, “Thank you.” She turned down the stove and replaced the pot. “They lost their stuffing,” she said, glaring at the casserole.

“What are they?” Grant surveyed it warily.

“They’re supposed to be beef olives.”

“They smell good,” Grant offered.

Rennie’s scowl if anything became blacker. “You don’t have to be kind!”

Grant looked at her with some sympathy. “Had a bad day?”

“Not particularly,” she admitted, still scowling, “until the last hour or so.” She had meant to greet him looking smoothly shining, wearing a dress and with her hair combed and perhaps put up in a knot. The house would be spotless and the children ready for dinner and bed, clean and sweet and amenable. And she would serve them a perfect meal, then they’d all clear up the dishes and she or Grant would read a story for Toby and Ellen before, perhaps, settling down to an evening together.

Now he was looking round him as if he’d blundered into an unexpected minefield, and she didn’t blame him. She knew she looked a mess, the house equally so, and her special dinner was ruined. She’d been listening with one ear to the sounds from the bathroom — it was obvious from the noise level that no one was drowned — and she knew that a fair bit of splashing had gone on, so that was probably equally a disaster area.

Underlining that thought, Ellen came bounding into the kitchen, pinkly naked with a towel held ineffectually at her middle, almost stepping on it as she ran towards Grant, crying, “Daddy! Dry me!”

“Okay, sweetheart!” He bent to her, wrapping her into the towel before bearing her off to the bathroom again.

Rennie pushed damp hair from her eyes and set her chin. Might as well get on with it.

While she salvaged what she could, Grant got the children into their pyjamas and wiped the bathroom. She heard the hum of the vacuum and knew she ought to be grateful that someone at least was being efficient. Instead, she felt more angry and humiliated than ever.

The children ate the mushy remains of the casserole without comment and, after glancing at Rennie’s face, Grant evidently decided the wisest course was to do the same. The cauliflower was passable, but she’d had not time to make the sauce. And the potatoes had gone lumpy. She’d been so anxious to get the meal over with, she’d skimped on the cooking time.

The pudding looked odd, all black at the edges and sunken in the centre, but Toby asked for a second helping. Rennie managed a grateful smile for him as she handed him the plate.

“I’ll put them to bed,” Grant offered when the meal was over and the plates carried to the kitchen. “And do the dishes later. You rest, Rennie.”

“I don’t need to rest,” she told him shortly. “I’ll do the dishes.”

She began clattering the empty plates into the sink. Grant gave her a thoughtful look and left her to it.

She got them all done and was on her knees scrubbing at the still-warm oven with a steel wool pad when he came in and said, “Ah, that’s where the smell came from.”

“I’ll get it off,” she promised, rubbing vigorously.

“Leave it — ” he suggested.

“No, it will only set harder once the oven cools.” She brushed back her hair impatiently with a blackened, soapy hand.

He bent and took her wrist, pulling her to her feet. “Leave it to me,” he said firmly. “I’ll finish it.”

Rennie’s chin set. “You don’t have to — it was my fault. I must have set the temperature too high. I did want it to be nice, and have everything on time, and the children ready, a decent house for you to come back to — but the pudding went over first, and the children were having a pillow fight and I didn’t notice until it was too late, Ellen’s was dripping foam all over so I had to sew it up to stop the mess getting worse and so she can sleep on it tonight, and then it rained, and I’d started to clean up but I’d forgotten the potatoes and — don’t you dare laugh at me!” she finished wrathfully, and threw the soapy pad in her hand at him.

It bounced harmlessly off his shoulder, and to his credit he was trying not to laugh, but she could see it in his eyes and in the faint twitch at the corner of his mouth. She stood glaring at him, her eyes bright with temper and her cheeks hot.

“I’m not laughing,” he lied. “I can see it isn’t funny for you — “

“No, it isn’t in the least funny!” She managed to hold onto the anger for a few more seconds, but she felt a reluctant smile tug at the corner of her own mouth. “I suppose it is, really,” she admitted.

“A bit,” Grant agreed. He reached out a hand and brushed his thumb firmly over her cheek. “Standing on your dignity doesn’t work when you’ve got black smudges all over your face, I’m afraid.”

“Oh-ooh!” Rennie wailed in a combination of anguish and despair. So she looked a fright as well.

And then Grant laughed in earnest, holding out his arms to her, and she went into them as naturally as breathing, having a quietly resigned little laugh of her own against his warm shoulder, while he nuzzled at her hair.

When the laughter died they stood quietly, their arms loosely about each other, and Rennie was content. She closed her eyes, hoping to make the moment last.

Grant moved and she held her breath for an instant. His hand was under her chin, lifting it. She kept her eyes closed, afraid of breaking the spell.

Grant said, his voice hardly more than a whisper, “Rennie?”

Reluctantly she opened her eyes. He was staring at her with dark intensity, and she stared back, unafraid.

“I shouldn’t do this,” he murmured, “but…”

She lifted her face a fraction nearer to his and closed her eyes again. And felt her lips part under the brush of his mouth across them, featherlight, tentative, promising.

She made a tiny sound and put her arms right around him, her fingers spread against his warm, hard back. Heard him say her name again, almost as though it hurt him, before his mouth was opening over hers, gentle but inexorable. And then less gentle, with an underlying violence as though he had decided to take what she was offering but was angry about it.

When he broke the kiss, suddenly pushing her away although he retained a tight hold on her arms, Rennie blinked at him in some dismay. His breathing was harsh, and the strange anger was in his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said, as if the words were dragged from him. “I should never have done that.”

“Why not?” she demanded. “I wanted you to!” She knew very well she had blatantly asked for it, and not for anything would she admit that she had been slightly frightened by the result.

He shook his head as if to clear it. “You ought to curb that headlong honesty of yours,” he said. “It could get you into trouble.”

“What do you expect me to do?” she asked. “Go all coy and pretend I’m afraid of being ravished? Some luck!”

“Rennie!” he protested on a reluctant choke of laughter.

“Well,” Rennie said, hiding her disappointment and confusion under flippancy, “if I’m not going to get ravished tonight — ” She bent to pick up the discarded soap pad.

“Not tonight, not any night,” Grant said firmly.

Regaining her confidence, she dared to say, “You wanna bet?”

“I mean it, Rennie” he said firmly. “It just won’t do. And you can take that stubborn look off your face, I’m not going to argue the toss with you.”

She made a face at him instead, and he laughed. Rennie was glad to hear it, but she looked thoughtfully at the wet pad in her hand and back at him.

Decisively, Grant shook his head. “Don’t try it again. You won’t get away with it a second time.”

Interested, she cocked her head to one side, regarding him.

“Uh-uh!” he warned. “Childish, Rennie. I might just retaliate in kind and put you over my knee.”

“Is that a promise?” Rennie asked, wide-eyed.

Grant shook his head, unable to stop a smile. “You are incorrigible!” And he walked out of the room.

A few days later Grant came home from work and walked into the kitchen, where Rennie was standing at the stove, lifting the lid off a boiling pot and listening to Toby read.

“Hi, son,” he said, ruffling Toby’s hair. “Hello, Rennie.” He looked about. “Where’s Ellen?”

Rennie lowered the heat beneath the potatoes, and turned to face him. Trying to sound casual, she said, “Playing with Sally, over the road.”

“At her place?”

“They’ve been over there — ” she glanced at her watch ” — oh, about an hour and a half. Sally’s mother’s was going to bring her back about now, unless she asked to come home sooner.”

Grant stood very still. “That’s great,” he said carefully. “Isn’t it?”

“Isn’t it?” Rennie couldn’t contain her excitement any longer. She almost flew across the kitchen, and put her arms about him in a hug. “She’s going to be just fine!”

Grant’s arms came round her to return the hug as she smiled up at him.

There was a knock on the door, and Rennie, her eyes shining, stepped back. “That’ll be them now.”

After the children had been put to bed, and Grant had kissed them goodnight, he came into the lounge to find Rennie sitting in a chair with her legs curled under her while she read a magazine, one finger absently twirling a lock of red hair that had escaped from her pony tail.

“You look like a kid yourself,” he said. “How can you work such miracles?”

“I didn’t. Time did. I told you that was all she needed.”

“The certainty of youth!”

“Oh, stop it. You’re not that ancient, yourself. I was right, anyway. And you needn’t think I don’t know why you’re always reminding me of the difference in our ages.” Which wasn’t quite fair, because he hadn’t, lately. Only he had also treated her with a formality bordering on indifference, and tonight, buoyed up by Ellen’s giant step forward, she felt rash enough to challenge him.

For a moment she thought he was going to retaliate. His eyes narrowed, and a brief glitter lit them. But he only said mildly, “I don’t mean to offend you, Rennie. We all owe you far too much for that.”

Rennie shook her head. “Give yourself some credit too, Grant. Having you back in her life on a permanent basis was probably the biggest factor.” It must have meant changing his whole lifestyle, but he had done it unhesitatingly. She wondered if there had been another woman in his life, as there had been another man for Jean. And she remembered with a little chill how he had looked at Celeste and Ethan on their wedding day. Celeste had been with him the evening Rennie had first met Grant. And had been borne off by Ethan in the middle of the ball.

My evening’s already spoiled, he had told her, offering to take her home. His evening — his life? She studied him, wondering. He had given little away, and she had been too shocked and shaken by Kevin’s unexpected attack and Grant’s accusations to read beneath the surface.

“What are you thinking?” he asked her, faint amusement in his interrogative glance.

“Do you hate being here?” she asked baldly. “In this house?”

It must be difficult, even painful, for him to be back in the house he had shared with Jean. Surrounded by reminders of her. He was even sleeping in her room. Their room, it must have been once. She wondered if he had chosen it automatically when he moved in to look after the children, or had deliberately left the spare room for his proposed live-in home help.

“Not specially,” he answered carefully. “It sometimes feels strange. There are — reminders of happier times. And less happy ones.” His gaze strayed about the room. “That pottery vase was a wedding present from a mutual friend of Jean’s and mine who was killed in a car crash soon afterwards. We both treasured it. The picture up there — ” he nodded at a seascape on the wall, ” — we chose together. The first thing we bought for our home. We knew it should have been pots and pans, or furniture. But we both fell in love with that.”

“You had a lot in common,” Rennie said softly, a painful sensation in her chest.

“We thought so, for a time,” Grant said dismissively. “Obviously not enough, though.”

“That’s sad.”

“Yes.” He took his gaze off the painting and said, “I must get the rest of my stuff out of the flat and bring it over.”

“I didn’t realise you still had another place.”

“I’ll have to get rid of it. Just haven’t got around to bringing everything over here. In the back of my mind, I suppose I still hoped to find some place I could start again with the children. But it’s obvious I can’t move them for a while yet.”

Silently she agreed.

He said, “Don’t you want the TV on?”

Rennie shook her head. “I was going to play some tapes, but — “

Grant looked at her interrogatively. “Go ahead. I don’t know if there’s anything to your taste here — “

“Some I brought from home,” she explained. “You might not like them.”

“Pop music?” He smiled, and when she nodded, he said, “I never listen to it, so I wouldn’t know, would I?”

She owned some classical and opera music too, but Grant was well provided with them. She knew he wouldn’t mind her listening to his. She stood up and said lightly, “I’ll educate you, if you like.”

He listened with her for over an hour. “That’s good,” he said appreciatively, and reached for the tape’s case with the list of songs on it. “I’ve never heard of this group. But then, I haven’t listened to pop much since my teenage years.”

“There is life after the Beatles,” Rennie reminded him.

“Actually the Beatles were a bit before my time,” he told her rather coolly.

“Oops! Sorry.”

“I belong to the Age of Aquarius.”

“Flower power?” She cocked her head. “You in beads and a hairband?”

Grant laughed. “That was the sixties and I was only a kid. But I did have long hair when I was at university. I wore flared jeans and anti-nuclear Tshirts.”

“Did you ever go on a protest march?”

“A few times. I still would if I felt it would do any good.”

He’d do anything he felt was necessary for what he believed in, Rennie guessed. “So would I,” she said.